Obama’s Final Farewell

By THE NEW YORK TIMES | Jan. 11, 2017| 2:58

After eight years and one of the most contentious elections in memory, President Obama took the stage in Chicago to defend his agenda and to encourage unity in an increasingly fractured political landscape.

FERGUSON, Mo. — The white police officer a grand jury declined to indict last week in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager has resigned from this city’s Police Department, his lawyer said on Saturday night.

The officer, Darren Wilson, who had worked in the department since 2011, submitted a resignation letter, said Neil J. Bruntrager, the lawyer. In the letter, first published in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mr. Wilson said: “It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal.”

For months, some here had called for Mr. Wilson, 28, to step down or be fired following the killing of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed, in August and then again last Monday, after the grand jury decision was announced.

“There will be no severance or extension of benefits for Darren Wilson following his resignation,” Mayor James Knowles told a news conference. Knowles also outlined new incentives to bring more African-Americans into the Ferguson police force.

Brown’s death galvanized critics of the way police and the criminal justice system treat African-Americans and other minority groups. Protests in Ferguson have taken place for months and erupted into violence when the grand jury decided last Monday not to charge Wilson.

The protests have spread around the country and over the past week, there have been demonstrations in more than 100 cities around the country, on public roadways, in shopping malls and government buildings.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will discuss the situation in Ferguson on Monday with his Cabinet, civil rights leaders, law enforcement officials and others.

The White House says Obama’s Cabinet meeting will focus on his administration’s review of federal programs that provide military-style equipment to law enforcement agencies.

The White House says the president also will meet with young civil rights leaders to discuss the challenges posed by “mistrust between law enforcement and communities of color.” He’ll then meet with government and law enforcement officials, as well as other community leaders, to discuss how to strengthen neighborhoods.

Read on… ______________________________HopeIn Ferguson, after a week of strife, some signs of hope and healing David Montgomery and Wesley Lowery (The Washington Post)

FERGUSON, Mo. — On the seventh day they could not exactly rest, but there were signs that residents, protesters, police and business owners were beginning to turn an important corner amid the strife of the past week and the bitter divisions of the past months.

That is not to say the passions and tensions are evaporating on Ferguson’s streets, where plywood covers shattered windows and the National Guard stands vigil after dark over a dozen burned-out shells of small businesses. The looting and destruction came last Monday night, after it was announced that a grand jury would not indict Officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9.

The Rev. Al Sharpton electrified a congregation of several hundred in a St. Louis church with a 50-minute address that was part protest speech, part theological call to action. Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., and mother, Lesley McSpadden, sat in the front row.